Over the past 2 years, I've worked on a housing design and a library, both currently stalled in NYC bureaucracy. The housing project required a re-zoning, which triggered a 1.5 year zoning change authorization review (ULURP) by the city. Before I started the project, I visited dozens of housing projects around NYC to see what works and what doesn't. I realized for open space to be successful in a housing project, it needed to be activated and overlooked. Here the communal open space is coupled with the laundry room and community room. To break down the scale of the 8 story building, the facade was broken down into colored modules relating to the town home fabric of the area. To avoid a long double loaded corridor condition, 2 entries were proposed for the building, thereby further breaking down the experiential scale of the building, fostering a more intimate scale for neighborly interactions.
After a week of contemplation and thinking, the basic elements of design took a week to resolve (program, circulation, and structure). The resolution of the electrical, plumbing, mechanical shafts, exterior wall, and housing codes took an extra couple of months.
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